DAMN'ED LIES

[greenmask]

Away for a month.. I wonder what I missed?? Many rumbles?

Anyway, I bring you bounty upon my return. You may or may not have heard of the amazing (liar) Baron Munchausen. He has a couple of illnesses named after him due to his tendancy to tell "tall tales" - four of which are related after the cut. And the art is pretty fantastic: perfectly suited to the tone. Enjoy!













Believe it or not, I found these amazing one-pagers in a Daily Mail children's annual. It was from maybe 1950, but the fact that the Daily Mail has ever published something that I can honestly say "that is entirely fantastic and in no way upsetting or offensive" about.. well, I find it hard to believe.

So I share them with you!

Comments

[yaseen101]

Welcome back!

Yo!

[greenmask]

Thanks! :D

[icon_uk]

Heh, on the one hand, great stuff, on the other hand, even back then the Daily Mail was making fun of foreigners.... (Okay, not what they meant, I know, but the DM does make an easy, and satisfying, target!

[barnesarama]

"Hurrah for the Blackshirts!"

[darklorelei]

I remember reading the one about the church steeple in German class.

[darklorelei]

...the story.

[fungo_squiggly]

Baron Munchausen is the bomb, yo.

I remember seeing a move about him when I was a kid, and being totally mystified by it. The film made a lot more sense when I saw it again as an adult... but only comparatively speaking.

[autohobbs]

Oh god, I remember Baron Munchhausen from when I was a child, at least the movie that was done by Terry Gilliam. Worlds greatest liar.

[tacobob]

Oh yeah, I loved that movie growing up as well. Hasn't aged very well, but it has some great actors in it and MAN Uma Thurman was smoking hot in that film. I liked it, since it was an Superhero movie set in ye Olden days.

[autohobbs]

Hasn't aged well? That movie is still amazing!

[psychopathicus_rex]

Agreed - one of the most critically underrated fantasy films of all time, I'd say.

[tacobob]

It actually had some pretty good reviews. There just was alot of negative press for it at the time because it was actually the most expensive British movie ever made.

It also didn't get much play over in the US..THANKFULLY I was near a theater that played it. So I was lucky. :3

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, still; it should have been a huge hit, and it... wasn't.
I think the Brits have (or had) an unfortunate tendency to self-sabotage some of their films if they go over budget or scandalize their sensibilities or something. I read elsewhere about how 'The Wicker Man', another good, well-known British movie, was almost completely destroyed and buried by its producers and the studio that made it. Virtually from day one, they refused to give it any support whatsoever, gave it zero publicity, yanked it from the theaters after something like five minutes, and attempted to bury and/or destroy any copies of the film they could get their hands on. It most likely would have sunk without a trace, except some film industry guy from the US got his hands on a copy somehow, loved it, and started making arrangements to distribute it in the States - and even then, the studio guys didn't stop trying to destroy the film; in fact, if anything, they doubled their efforts. To this day, it is difficult to get complete, uncut versions of the film because of them - and no one knows why; it was completely inexplicable, because just about everyone else agrees that it's a great flick, and they could have made MILLIONS off it - but no, they were bound and determined to shoot themselves in the feet. It's very strange.

[tacobob]

Oh, and I love the movie. It's just one of those films you saw when you were young. Didn't see it for ages and then saw it recently and it just looks odd. Mostly the FX. It's still a great flick.

[geoffsebesta]

It's an interesting movie, definitely fills in the blanks in some other works that I find more satisfying.

There's a very interesting difference between this Baron and Gilliam's. This Baron is a liar.

He's not lying in the movie. He's entirely plausible, all his spectacles are lavishly illustrated, and everyone who disbelieves in him is a sack of crap.

But in the original story (?), certainly in what we see above, it's obvious that the Baron's making it all up.

The movie's more the autobiography of a liar and a meditation on the nature of stories. The fact that it displaced the original Baron (who presents as a carnival of disbelief -- the joy of the story comes from doubting it) is...interesting.

[skalja]

Well, the magic of adapting folk/fairy tales is looking at them in a new way, IMO. Anyway, it's not like the real Baron von Munchhausen was particularly noted for being either a tale-teller or a braggart, so ...